The proliferation of the Internet has made it quite easy for a web user to express his or her opinion to large audiences about products, services, people, events, places, and the like. This expression is typically accomplished via social media websites (e.g., Facebook™ and Twitter™), product review websites (e.g., Yelp™ and CNET™), company websites (e.g., Amazon™), forums, blogs, articles, and surveys. Regardless of the tool utilized, the user's opinion often has a long-lasting impact because readers tend to give significant weight to other's opinions when judging a product, service, person, event, or place. The user's opinion, therefore, can tip the scales when the reader is selecting a product to purchase, selecting a candidate to elect, selecting an event to attend, or selecting a service to utilize. As a result of this realization, companies, campaigns, and advertisers have become more focused on user-generated online content, and are particularly interested in extracting what is being said about their products and services, or what is being said about their competitor's products and services.